| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Alliteration | The repetition of consonatnt sounds at the beginning of words or accented syllables |
| Allusion | brief reference to a person, event, or place, real or fictitious, or to a work of art |
| Anaphora | To use a controlling word, such as "the", in order to enforce the meaning of the word that follows it |
| Assonance | the repetition of vowel sounds |
| Ballad | song like poems that tell stories, often ones dealing with adventure and romance |
| Blank Verse | poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter |
| Connotation | an implied meaning of a word |
| Denotation | the literal meaning of a word |
| Consonance | the repetition of consonant sounds |
| Epic Poem | long poems about the deeds of gods or heroes |
| Figurative Language | writing in speech not meant to be taken literally. It is used to express idea in vivid and imaginative ways |
| Free Verse | poetry that lacks a regular rhythmical pattern, meter |
| Haiku | poem with three lines containing 5, 7, 5 syllables |
| Hyperbole | an exaggeration or overstatement |
| Imagery | language that evokes one or all of the five senses: seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting |
| Lyric Poem | a melodic poem that expresses the observations and feelings of a single speaker |
| Metaphor | a comparison of two unlike things without using "like" or "as" |
| Metonymy | A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated, as in the use of Washington for the United States government or of the sword for military power. |
| Narrative Poem | tells a story in verse |
| Onomatopoeia | a word that imitates the sound it represents |
| Oxymoron | using two contradictory words together |
| Paradox | two opposing ideas that reveal a truth which at first seems contradictory |
| Personification | giving human qualities to objects |
| Quatrain | a 4-line stanza |
| End Rhyme | a rhyme that occurs in the last syllables of verses |
| Simile | the comparison of two unlike things using "like" or "as" |
| Petrarchan Sonnet | A 14 line lyric poem that is divided into two parts, the 8 line octave and the six line sestet |
| Shakespearean Sonnet | A 14 line lyric poem that which consists of 3 quatrains and a couplet |
| Terza Rima | a verse form composed of iambic tercets (three-line groupings). The rhyme scheme for this form of poetry is "aba bcb cdc, etc." |
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